Master! There's steam coming off his head!
by mtfrosty
Summary: Anakin and Obi-wan show up for sparring practice and Mace can't figure out what they're arguing about. If you're having a down day, maybe this'll cheer you up!


Just having a little bit of fun! Hope you enjoy!

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"It is clearly your turn, Anakin. It's on the calendar."

"Just because it's on the calendar doesn't mean it's my turn," Anakin argued. He frowned at the man walking beside him. "Besides, you purposefully used way more than you needed to."

Obi-wan rolled his eyes. "Did not. Just because you mix all of your foods when you eat a meal doesn't mean that's how everyone else eats a meal. Some of us don't like our pudding on our pizza."

"But that still doesn't give you an excuse to use one giant plate for two slices of pizza and then a separate bowl for your dessert! Just put them on the same plate!" Anakin retorted. Then he threw up his hands in exasperation. "Oh but wait. Then you just HAD to eat your pizza with a fork, because who knows what disaster would have occurred if your hands got dirty. And let's not forget that you put pretty much two bites of pudding in yet another bowl in the fridge as a leftover for later. Then you had to make a pitcher of Kool-Aid to go with your lunch, which you _accidentally _spilled all over the floor. So all in all that's five dishes for one meal, and that meal was lunch, which most normal people don't even use dishes for anyway!" Anakin practically shouted into his master's face.

Obi-wan wasn't even the least bit ruffled by his padawan's outburst, considering they argued like this every day anyway. He just shrugged. "So what? Have you maybe considered the fact that I'm not normal?"

Anakin gave him a 'look.' "Considered it? After the first day of living with you I knew you weren't normal."

Obi-wan nodded. "Well then how can you expect me to eat like someone who is normal?"

Anakin realized he had gotten himself stuck, yet again, trying to beat his master in a duel of words. Arguing obviously was not his strong point, and Obi-wan always made sure to let him know. Anakin acted like he hadn't noticed though. "I still think you're doing it on purpose," he grumbled.

Obi-wan smirked. "Am not. And even if I was, I can assure you I wouldn't have dropped that pitcher on purpose."

Anakin glared at him. "Maybe not, but it hit the table at _exactly_ the right angle so that a good amount of it splashed on me."

Obi-wan chuckled and stopped at the door leading to the training facility. "Well then maybe you should have used your extraordinary force powers and Jedi reflexes to catch it. Then it would only be four dishes instead of five."

Anakin pointed a finger at him. "Don't you go blaming me for that _accident_. You could have easily done the same thing."

Obi-wan smiled and opened the door, gesturing for Anakin to go inside. "Yeah, but where would be the fun in that? Besides, I'm the one who cleaned it up."

"Only because I had to change shirts!" Anakin said.

"Not the point…" They kept arguing as they walked into the training gym where two other master/padawan pairs were waiting.

Mace Windu was also waiting. He watched the pair enter the gym and immediately felt the annoyance start to build within him. He wasn't surprised that they were late; that was a regular occurrence. He had purposefully planned this spar for 12:45 in the afternoon so that it would start at one.

But just because he wasn't surprised didn't mean he wasn't annoyed. And on top of that, they were arguing… again.

He felt like a babysitter whenever he was around those two. They were always bickering about something completely pointless. Last time it had happened during a senate debate and they had been lashing out at each other in hushed whispers. Mace had not-so-politely told them to cool it and had inquired as to what the big deal was.

They had been arguing about who would get the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer. Mace had told them to split it, which had sparked another argument with Skywalker about the fact that ice cream sandwiches can't be split because then they melt in twice as many places… and apparently they taste differently when they melt in that many places. Mace had given up.

He narrowed his eyes as the two got closer to where he was standing with the other four. Having been pulled into enough arguments with the two of them to know that this was not going to end unless he did something now, he fixed his gaze on Obi-wan until the master shifted his eyes to Mace.

Obi-wan was a good friend of Mace's, but that didn't mean they could ignore the fact that Mace was a council member and Obi-wan wasn't. Obi-wan gave Anakin a sharp look and then smiled at Mace. "He-_llo_, Master."

Mace raised a brow. "Hello, Obi-wan. Are you two going to save it for later, or do I need to set aside a time when we can meet and work things out?" Mace saw that Obi-wan was about to reply, but Anakin quickly chimed in.

"Oh no, Master Windu, that's alright. We can save it for later," he said, giving Mace an innocent look.

Mace just sighed and turned his attention toward the matter at hand. He knew that Anakin had just saved him from having to endure one of Kenobi's drastically clever remarks. Obi-wan had always been one of the few people who wasn't intimidated by Mace and it annoyed the crud out of him.

"Okay, everyone," Mace began. "Today we're going to do a basic spar that involves…" he trailed off when his eyes again fell on the dynamic duo.

He caught Anakin in the act of giving his master a quiet, but fairly hard shove in the ribs with his elbow. Obi-wan retaliated with a glare that could have melted the entire planet of Hoth.

Mace put his hands on his hips and took a small step towards them. "Are you two finished?" he said in an even voice, but he laced it with a threatening tone.

"Yes, quite finished," Obi-wan curtly replied, his eyes not leaving Anakin's.

Mace realized that they were now in the middle of a staredown and knew that he would never be able to end it unless he could make one of them blink, so he just shook his head and continued. He knew they would listen.

"As I was saying, today we're going to do a basic spar that pits everyone against each other. You will spar in the pairs you are in now. I've upped the ante this time. I know that normally the objective is not to inflict any harm on anyone else, so today we're going to use practice sabers to make sure no one gets seriously injured. The settings are on low, so the burns won't be too bad."

Anakin blinked. Obi-wan grinned at him, knowing he had won the staredown. Anakin turned his head to look at Mace. He raised a hand. Mace saw it, rolled his eyes, and nodded. "Yes, Anakin?"

"Wait a minute. We actually get to touch people with our sabers?"

Obi-wan gave him a look. "Not 'get' to, Anakin. That makes it sound bad. And we're using _practice_ sabers, not our real ones, so – Hey wait!" He turned his gaze on Mace. "We actually get to touch other people with them… as in _burn_ them?"

Anakin smirked. "Not 'get' to, master, that makes it sound bad. And I just asked that." Obi-wan glared at him.

_These two are hopeless, _Mace grumbled to himself. "Yes, that's the new part. And Anakin, we are burning _lightly_. No slashing, ok?"

"Yes, master," Anakin mumbled, obviously unhappy about that part.

"Does it hurt?" Obi-wan asked.

"Afraid of getting hit, master?" Anakin asked with a teasing smile.

Obi-wan looked at him. "No. Our closet's out of bacta patches, so I wanted to make sure you wouldn't be complaining too much." There were a few _oooh_s at Obi-wan's jibe, but Mace quickly quieted them down, especially since Anakin's eye had started to twitch.

"No, Master Kenobi, it will merely itch. However, the rule is if you get burned you're out. Now, any more questions or can we begin?"

"Do we get a prize?" Anakin asked eagerly, his attention momentarily diverted from Obi-wan's earlier comment.

Obi-wan put a hand to his forehead, rubbing his temples. "Anakin, this is practice, not a competition." Anakin ignored him and waited for Mace to answer.

"No, Skywalker, no prizes," Mace practically growled. "Now let's get started. Everyone grab a practice saber and get in the circle." Mace saw that Kenobi and Skywalker were still arguing about something, but he let it slide.

Hopefully they would just focus on the spar, because he didn't want to keep them after… again.

The three pairs stepped into the circle and Mace stood at the edge. Anakin was whining about how weak the practice sabers were (actually he called them 'little-kiddish' but Mace figured he should translate that), but Mace didn't pay any attention to him. He didn't know how Kenobi managed to get anything done with a padawan like Anakin. "Okay, you may begin!" he shouted.

The spar started out slow, as it usually did. It was different pairs every time so that they were always sparring against different people. They always had to get a feel for each other before getting into the good stuff.

Kenobi and Skywalker, however, were still going at each other about whatever it was they had been arguing about when they showed up.

Obi-wan finally turned on Anakin and, eyes blazing, settled the issue there and then. "Fine, Anakin! You want to fight over it, we'll fight over it! We finish this spar and then it's you and me, in the fountain room, immediately after. Actual sabers, one who gets burns first has to do them, no exceptions."

"Deal," Anakin answered, eyes also on fire.

It was the fastest spar Mace had ever witnessed. In fact, it took all of two minutes for the Kenobi/Skywalker team to finish off the other four.

Mace, as well as everyone else in the temple, knew how good the duo worked together, but that spar was something different altogether. The two moved like one person that had four arms.

Neither of them seemed to notice how good they fought together, though, because as soon as they were done, the two immediately stalked for the door, passing Mace without so much as a glance. Mace had a bad feeling about this.

"Whoa, hold on you two! There is no fighting allowed in the Room of a Thousand Fountains."

Mace was going to put the two in separate rooms and give each of them a piece of his mind. That was until Kenobi turned around with the calmest expression Mace had ever seen plastered on his face.

"Mace, just stay out of it." Six words. They were the six most frightening words Mace had heard.

It wasn't what was said, it was the tone in which they were said, and the lethal calm in those blue-grey eyes that did it. For the first time in his life, Mace Windu backed down.

No one found out what had gone on in the "fountain room" during the hour that the two were in there until Mace passed by them both a little while after. He saw an angry red mark on Kenobi's neck and Anakin had a hand to his stomach. "I hit you a second before," Kenobi was saying.

"Same time," Anakin argued.

"Fine, same time. We'll decide by whose hit was more fatal," Kenobi countered.

"More fatal?" Mace asked, coming up behind them. "Fatal means you're dead and one dead can't be more dead than the other dead."

Both of them looked at him with puzzled expressions on their faces. "That was four deads in one sentence, master Windu."

"Good job, Anakin," Obi-wan sarcastically replied.

"What is going on? Seriously," Mace asked them, looking from one to the other. In Kenobi's eyes there was nothing but the same poker face he gave everyone. Skywalker's held a bit more fear in them and Mace narrowed his gaze at the young padawan. "Anakin?"

"Don't you breathe a word," Obi-wan warned.

"Stow it, Kenobi," Mace growled.

"Well… erm… you see," Anakin began. Then he spilled.

"Master Kenobi says it's my turn to do the dishes, but he's purposely using a bunch of dishes so that I have to do more and he says it's my turn cuz it's on the calendar, but I think he should have to do them because he's using more on purpose and that's not fair, and run master cuz there's steam coming off his head!" Anakin shouted.

Before Mace could comprehend what Anakin had just told him, both of his victims had fled down the hall at a speed that was supposed to be unattainable, even for a Jedi. Mace stood there for a moment and then he finally exploded.

"Dirty dishes," he said, not believing what he had just found out. "You mean to tell me… that all of this was about dirty dishes! You two are finished!" he yelled after them and sped down the hall, purple lightsaber blazing.

Fifteen seconds later, two frightened yelps and one maniacal laugh could be heard echoing through the halls.

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_Funny? Hope so! Feel free to review! :)_

_ "I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." ~ Woody Allen_


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